“Thank you. Your house is beautiful.” I toe off my shoes in the middle of the rug before nudging them into alignment beside another neatly placed pair. We move from the foyer into the living room, where a black cat with white booties struts in as if it owns the place, which it probably does. The cat hops onto the couch and flicks its tail.
“This is my cat, Mallow. Short for Marshmallow.” A flash of panic flits through his eyes. “You’re not allergic, are you?”
“No. I love cats. I just can’t have one in my apartment.” Besides the no-pet policy, my apartment barely qualifies as enough living space for me. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy.” Miles scoops him up and cradles him like a baby, rubbing his chest while he purrs loudly.
“Okay,” I say, pointing, “I’d understand the name Marshmallow if he was white. But he’s… very black.”
He chuckles. “When I was a kid, I’d roast marshmallows until they were completely black. Then I’d peel off the burnt layer, eat it, and put it back in the fire. I’d repeat the process until it was gone.”
I blink. “That’s one way to eat them.”
“It’s the only way. You get five or six marshmallows out of one.”
I laugh despite myself. “I guess so.”
“So Mallow is the outside of my marshmallow.”
I reach out and scratch the top of Mallow’s head. He immediately leans into my hand, a tiny meow escaping him like a sigh. Miles sets him down, and Mallow promptly weaves between my legs, rubbing against me and declaring us best friends.
“Well,” Miles grins, clearly amused, “I think he likes you.”
“I have to say, I like Mallow too.”
He gestures toward the couch. “Make yourself comfortable. Want something to drink?”
What I want is vodka. Straight. But I settle for something safer. “Water is good.”
Miles heads into the open kitchen, and I sink into the plush couch cushions. My gaze drifts to the coffee table, where a neat stack of books catches my attention. I reach down to the lower shelf and pull them out. A Mediterranean diet cookbook and two books about living with MS. My heart stutters.
Miles returns with two bottles of water and freezes mid-step when he sees what I’m holding. “What’s wrong?” he asks carefully.
I lift the books. “Why do you have these?”
“Oh. After you told me your mom has MS, I wanted to learn more about it.”
“And the cookbook?”
“If we go flying again, I thought maybe I could bring a picnic instead of only snacks.”
My thoughts don’t just stall, they vanish, as if someone flipped the breaker and left me standing in the dark. He learned about my mom’s MS a week ago. A week. And he’s already got books for research. He’s thinking about picnics and food that’ll make her day easier. My throat tightens as if I swallowed a brick.
I’ve dated men for months—men who kissed me, slept with me, called me “babe”—and they still couldn’t tell me what MS stands for. They’d nod when I talked, then change the subject like my mom’s illness was an awkward dinner topic instead of my life. But Miles… Miles heard one thing that mattered to me, and he didn’t just listen. He took matters into his own hands.
Heat burns behind my eyes. I blink too hard, trying to bully the tears back into place. My hands suddenly don’t know what to do with the books, with the moment, with the fact that I want to laugh and cry and shake him all at once.
“Why would you—” My voice cracks. I clear my throat, but it doesn’t fix the way my pulse flutters. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugs. “I wanted to.”
And that undoes me. I’m not used to people showing up like this. Not without being asked. Not without being begged. My grip tightens on the book covers until my fingers ache, and for a moment, I can’t quite breathe around the truth pressing against my ribs. This is what it feels like when someone actually cares.
“I hope that’s okay,” he adds, suddenly unsure.
“Oh. Yeah.” My voice comes out softer than I intend. “Of course.”
He hands me a bottle of water and sits a half cushion away from me. I twist off the cap and take a long gulp, mostly to buy myself a moment to breathe.
